1. Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present disclosure relate to negative active materials, negative electrodes including the same, lithium batteries including the negative electrodes, and methods of preparing the negative active materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
Carbonaceous materials such as graphite are widely used as negative active materials in electrochemical cells including batteries such as lithium batteries. Graphite has excellent capacity retaining characteristics and potential characteristics, and there is little change in volume during alloy formation with lithium. Thus, batteries including electrodes including graphite are highly stable. However, there is a limitation to using such a negative active material as a material for high-capacity batteries.
In addition, as a negative active material, metals that are capable of alloy formation with lithium may be used. Examples of the metals that are capable of alloy formation with lithium include silicon (Si), tin (Sn), aluminum (Al), and the like. These metals that are capable of alloy formation with lithium have very high electrical capacity, but cause a volumetric expansion during charging and discharging, thereby creating an electrically disconnected active material in an electrode and aggravating capacity retaining characteristics of batteries, accordingly.
Thus, there is a gradually increasing need to develop negative active materials with enhanced performances for high-capacity batteries.